Museum Making

MUSEUM MAKING Over recent decades, many museums, galleries and historic sites around the world have enjoyed an unprecedented level of large-scale investment in their capital infrastructure; in building refurbishments and new gallery displays. This period has also seen the creation of countless new purpose-built museums and galleries, suggesting a fundamental re-evaluation of the processes of designing and shaping museums. Museum Making: narratives, architectures, exhibitions examines this re-making by exploring the inherently spatial character of narrative in the museum and its potential to connect on the deepest levels with human perception and imagination. Through this uniting theme, the chapters explore the power of narratives as structured experiences unfolding in space and time, as well as the use of theatre, film and other technologies of storytelling by contemporary museum makers to generate meaningful and, it is argued here, highly effective and affective museum spaces. Contributions by an internationally diverse group of museum and heritage professionals, exhibition designers, architects and artists, with academics from a range of disciplines including museum studies, theatre studies, architecture, design and history, cut across traditional boundaries including the historical and the contemporary and together explore the various roles and functions of narrative as a mechanism for the creation of engaging and meaningful interpretive environments. Suzanne MacLeod is Senior Lecturer in the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, UK. Laura Hourston Hanks is Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Nottingham, UK. Jonathan Hale is an architect and Reader in Architectural Theory at the University of Nottingham, UK. Museum Meanings Series Editors Richard Sandell and Christina Kreps Museums have undergone enormous changes in recent decades; an ongoing process of renewal and transformation bringing with it changes in priority, practice and role as well as new expec- tations, philosophies, imperatives and tensions that continue to attract attention from those working in, and drawing upon, wide ranging disciplines. Museum Meanings presents new research that explores diverse aspects of the shifting social, cultural and political significance of museums and their agency beyond, as well as within, the cultural sphere. Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural and international perspectives and empirical investigation are brought to bear on the exploration of museums’ relationships with their various publics (and analysis of the ways in which museums shape – and are shaped by – such interactions). Theoretical perspectives might be drawn from anthropology, cultural studies, art and art history, learning and communication, media studies, architecture and design and material culture studies amongst others. Museums are understood very broadly – to include art galleries, historic sites and other cultural heritage institutions – as are their relationships with diverse constituencies. The focus on the relationship of the museum to its publics shifts the emphasis from objects and collections and the study of museums as text, to studies grounded in the analysis of bodies and sites; identities and communities; ethics, moralities and politics. Forthcoming: Museums, Equality and Social Justice Heritage and Identity Edited by Richard Sandell and Engagement and Demission in the Eithne Nightingale Contemporary World Edited by Marta Anico and Elsa Peralta Also in the series: Museums in a Troubled World Museums and Community Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse? Ideas, Issues and Challenges Robert R. Janes Elizabeth Crooke Recoding the Museum Re-imagining the Museum Digital Heritage and the Technologies of Change Beyond the Mausoleum Ross Parry Andrea Witcomb Rethinking Evolution in the Museum Museums, Society, Inequality Envisioning African Origins Edited by Richard Sandell Monique Scott Museums and the Interpretation of Museums and Education Visual Culture Purpose, Pedagogy, Performance Eilean Hooper-Greenhill Eilean Hooper-Greenhill Museum, Media, Message Museums Texts Edited by Eilean Hooper-Greenhill Communication Frameworks Louise Ravelli Learning in the Museum George Hein Reshaping Museum Space Architecture, Design, Exhibitions, Colonialism and the Object Edited by Suzanne MacLeod Empire, Material Culture and the Museum Edited by Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn Pasts Beyond Memory Evolution, Museums, Colonialism Tony Bennett Liberating Culture Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Museums, Curation and Heritage Preservation Christina F. Kreps MUSEUM MAKING Narratives, architectures, exhibitions Edited by Suzanne MacLeod, Laura Hourston Hanks and Jonathan Hale First published 2012 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2012 Suzanne MacLeod, Laura Hourston Hanks and Jonathan Hale, selection and editorial matter; individual chapters, the contributors. The right of Suzanne MacLeod, Laura Hourston Hanks and Jonathan Hale to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted, in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Museum making : narratives, architectures, exhibitions / edited by Suzanne MacLeod, Laura Hourston Hanks, and Jonathan Hale.—1st ed. p. cm.—(Museum meanings) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Museum architecture.2. Communication in architecture. I. Macleod, Suzanne. II. Hourston Hanks, Laura. III. Hale, Jonathan. IV. Title: Narratives, architectures, exhibitions. NA6690.M8685 2012 727'.6—dc23 2011037793 ISBN: 978–0–415–67602–1 (hbk) ISBN: 978–0–415–67603–8 (pbk) ISBN: 978–0–203–12457–4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon Printed and bound CONTENTS List of illustrations x List of contributors xiii Acknowledgements xviii Introduction: Museum making: the place of narrative xix Laura Hourston Hanks, Jonathan Hale and Suzanne MacLeod PART I Narrative, space, identity 1 Introduction 1 1 Imaginary museums: what mainstream museums can learn from them 5 Rachel Morris 2 Staging exhibitions: atmospheres of imagination 12 Greer Crawley 3 Writing spatial stories: textual narratives in the museum 21 Laura Hourston Hanks 4 Athens, London or Bilbao? Contested narratives of display in the Parthenon galleries of the British Museum 34 Christopher R. Marshall 5 This magical place: the making of Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the politics of landscape, art and narrative 48 Suzanne MacLeod viii Contents 6 Narrative space: three post-apartheid museums reconsidered 63 Nic Coetzer 7 The museum as narrative witness: heritage performance and the production of narrative space 74 Jenny Kidd 8 Beyond narrative: designing epiphanies 83 Lee H. Skolnick 9 Place, time and memory 95 Stephen Greenberg PART II Narrative, perception, embodiment 105 Introduction 105 10 Scales of narrativity 107 Tricia Austin 11 City as museum, museum as city: mediating the everyday and special narratives of life 119 Dorian Wiszniewski 12 Narrative transformations and the architectural artefact 132 Stephen Alexander Wischer 13 Architecture for the nation’s memory: history, art, and the halls of Norway’s national gallery 144 Mattias Ekman 14 Arsenic, wells and herring curing: making new meanings in an old fish factory 157 Sheila Watson, Rachel Kirk and James Steward 15 Accessing Estonian memories: building narratives through game form 168 Candice Hiu-Lam Lau 16 Narrative landscapes 179 James Furse-Roberts 17 Narrative environments and the paradigm of embodiment 192 Jonathan Hale Contents ix PART III Narrative, media, mediation 201 Introduction 201 18 Narrative space: The Book of Lies 203 Paola Zellner 19 Productive exhibitions: looking backwards to go forward 213 Florian Kossak 20 Incomplete stories 223 Annabel Fraser and Hannah Coulson 21 In the museum’s ruins: staging the passage of time 234 Michaela Giebelhausen 22 Meaningful encounters with disrupted narratives: artists’ interventions as interpretive strategies 247 Claire Robins and Miranda Baxter 23 Where do you want the label? The roles and possibilities of exhibition graphics 257 Jona Piehl and Suzanne MacLeod 24 The narrative of technology: understanding the effect of New Media artwork in the museum 267 Peter Ride 25 The thick present: architecture, narration and film 277 Samantha L. Martin-McAuliffe and Nathalie Weadick 26 A narrative journey: creating storytelling environments with architecture and digital media 288 Tom Duncan and Noel McCauley Select bibliography 298 Index 305 ILLUSTRATIONS Figures 2.1 Space and Light, Edward Gordon Craig Exhibition, V&A 17 2.2 Atalanta, Ashmolean Museum

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